How much does God really care? Sometimes we
approach the significance of Jesus Christ’s death on the Cross in terms of
mechanics: discussing the means whereby and the end effect achieved. And these
do matter. Foundational to the Christian message is the declaration that Jesus
Christ died, was buried and rose again, according to the Scriptures (1
Corinthians 15.3-4). As the atoning lamb of God (John 1.29), Christ’s
death is both substitutionary (Hebrews 2.9) and sacrificial (Hebrews
10.12), Jesus Christ taking our place (2 Corinthians 5.14). At the
Cross, when Jesus died, we see punishment effected for mankind’s sin,
perfecting humanity (Hebrews 5.8-9) and propitiating God’s wrath (Romans
3.25). The pain that Jesus endured was both punitive and healing (Isaiah
53.4): the wonderful, divine exchange executed at Calvary (1 Peter 3.18).
Through all of this, we need to remember that
Christ’s death is the measure of how deeply God cares. How much He cares for
you and for me. The death of Jesus Christ on the Cross is not but a journey to
be endured, for Jesus; but it is the outworking of the heart of God’s love and
compassion towards us. Jesus Christ’s death brings a further unveiling of the
revelation of the Name, the identity, of God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We
see here the depths of God’s commitment towards us. And here we meet with God’s
invitation to us, to grow deeper in our experience of His love, through what
Jesus Christ has done for us: the length, breadth, height and depth of that
love with which God would now engulf us.
The significance and power of Jesus Christ’s
death had immediate cosmic repercussions, which the Gospel accounts record. The
change of atmospheric conditions, the tearing of the veil in the Temple, the
breaking open of tombs of the dead and their coming out of them (Matthew
27.45-53): these events, occurring at the time of crucifixion, draw us
towards experiencing the continuing, cosmic reverberations of that death,
reaching out through space and time and impacting us still today.
This continuing power of Christ’s death
signifies the type of relationship that God wants to have with us. It is
expressed, as we saw, in our baptism. God demonstrates His heart for us in this
relationship of intense intimacy, a moment of exchange to which Jesus Christ
comes, ‘to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him’
(2 Corinthians 5.21). Here is abundant, unqualified love, manifesting
the fullness of His rescuing, redeeming purpose. From here the greater
dimensions of His Kingdom presence are released into our lives.
How can we grow in our experience and
understanding of Christ’s death for us? Hebrews 2.14-15 helps us to
develop this:
In as much then
as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in
the same, that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death,
that is, the devil, and release those who through fear of death were all their
lifetime subject to bondage.
In dealing with the ‘fear of death’, God
releases into us the experience of reconciliation with Himself. Experience of
death’s defeat comes, for each of us personally, as we invite the Holy Spirit
to reach down into the depths of our dark night to dispel the fear of death
that threatens to engulf us, allowing us to realise how Jesus meets with us in
that place. The prayer, ‘Come, reign of God!’ that Jesus teaches us as
disciples (Luke 11.2), recognises that the reign of God needs to be
ushered in at our invitation, acknowledging Christ’s full embrace of us in His
death, usurping the rule of the Devil over our lives. As the power of death is
defeated by Jesus Christ, communion with God in righteousness and holiness is
restored in us.
An integral aspect of this reign of God, the
presence of God’s Kingdom, was evidenced prior to the pinnacle of Jesus
Christ’s ministry that came at the Cross: it was present in the healing and
deliverance ministry that Jesus exercised and inducted His disciples into, a
ministry that began after His baptism in the Jordan and continued, throughout
His life, beyond the Cross and into the ministry of the church, after the
ascension of Jesus and the release of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. Today,
ministries of healing and deliverance have multiplied in local churches, where
effective evangelism and church growth is taking place, within Scotland as well
as further afield. A realisation, that the power of Jesus Christ’s death
releases us into a ministry that expresses the atonement that He undertook for
our sakes, allows a continuation of His ministry in and through us, as His
continuing body here on earth.
It is from this place, from the Cross that He
died, that we carry our witness to Christ into the world. It is from here that
our mission and ministry begin. We set out, not from a position of success or
power, but from one of vulnerability and weakness. Our vindication does not lie
in our own hands, but with God. Our sharing with others, reaching from the
Cross of Christ, begins with our sharing the vulnerability and weakness that
others feel and are threatened by, through circumstances that face them. It is
at this point that their meeting with Jesus Christ, through us, begins.
Questions
for reflection:
·
In what
way can you see your life continuing to be reshaped, because of Jesus Christ’s
death?
·
What
aspects, of being joined with Jesus Christ in His death, do you find yourself
resisting?
·
In what
ways do you express vulnerability and weakness in your life, if at all?
